1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an analysis apparatus and an analysis method, more specifically, design of a conveying path of a sheet recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
In design of the object, it is preferable to examine the functions of an object under various conditions before manufacturing the object or a prototype of the object because the examination allows the number of processes necessary to manufacture and test the prototype of the object to be decreased and also allows the development time and the cost to be reduced. This applies to the design of the conveying path of a sheet recording medium, such as a sheet of paper or a film, in an image forming apparatus, such as a copier or a laser-beam printer (LBP).
Accordingly, the behaviors of sheet recording media that are being conveyed are analyzed by simulation. For example, technologies for simulating the behaviors of recording media includes a technology disclosed in Katsuhito Sudoh, 2000, “Modeling a String from Observing the Real Object”, Proc. of Int. Conf. on Virtual Systems and Multimedia (VSMM 2000), pp. 544-553, in which a recording medium is simply represented by the mass and spring. A solution to the motion of a recording medium is sought by numerical time integration, in which the equation of motion of the recording medium discretely represented by a mass-spring system is formulated, the target analysis time is divided into time steps each having a finite width, and the unknown acceleration, velocity, and displacement are sequentially calculated for every time step from time 0. For example, Newmark's β method, Wilson's θ method, Euler method, and Kutta-Merson method are widely used for such simulation.
In the simulation of a recording medium that is being conveyed, the calculation result is output to quantitatively evaluate a phenomenon, such as a collision, of the recording medium. The phenomenon such as a collision of the recording medium, which occurs in a very short period of time, has a waveform having a momentary peak. Information in short time steps is necessary to evaluate such a waveform.
Output of all the data for every time step about the calculation result of the recording medium results in the file of a great size. Consequently, the load of readout of the resulting file is produced and, furthermore, it takes time to display the waveform on a screen. In order to resolve the above problems, the file is generally output for every several time steps to decrease the file size.
In order to resolve the problem that the display of the result of the file output of a great size on an screen increases the load, for example, a method of displaying only characteristic parts in detail and roughly displaying the remaining parts is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-91316.
However, when the file is output for every several time steps, there is a problem in that information calculated between a certain file output and the next file output is not output in the file despite the fact that it is desirable to record the information.
In addition, the amount of information about the parts that are necessary for the evaluation is varied depending on the rigidity of the recording medium. For example, it is assumed that a recording medium having a higher rigidity and a recording medium having a lower rigidity are provided. In this case, as the rigidity is increased, the reaction force of the recording medium in a collision has a waveform having higher and sharper peaks and, therefore, it is necessary to output the file in shorter time steps in order to pick up the characteristics of the waveform. Conversely, as the rigidity is decreased, the reaction force has a waveform having lower and wider peaks and, therefore, the file is output in time steps longer than those of the recording medium having a higher rigidity. Under such conditions, the file output in the same conditions across different types of the recording media results in appropriate file output for some types of the recording media but fails in detailed file output for some types of the recording media. In addition, the waveforms that are too fine are undesirably output for some types of the recording media.